Muppet Show

The parliament was like the Muppet Show yesterday. The historical reasons behind this were that two Buddhist monk MPs who have got selected to the parliament from the JHU (the monk’s party as it’s called by international media) crossed over to the side of the coalition government of SLFP and JVP. Somehow one monk resigned from his post and when his replacement was about to swear in, the SLFP/JVP members started the Muppet Show. At the end of the day 2 monks ended up in the hospital. The JHU says that this shows how the parliament is ruled by a gang of thugs and it shows the true nature of the JVP. This sure does show the true nature of the JVP and this is the same way JVP supporters behave in universities. They are the cause of most of the trouble in the universities. Some of the JVP members of parliament seem to have forgotten that they are no longer in the university but in the parliament. But we have to remember that two of the main supporters of the JHU, Udaya Gammanpila and Champika Ranawake were JVP supporters when they were in school. They behaved the same way and shamelessly they criticize the JVP without apologizing about their own behavior when they ver JVPers. “Dhaen piruvata aendhagena aevilla bana kivuvata, ee dhennath issara ohoma thamai. Dhaenuth indhala hitala Champikage parana purudhu mathuvenava tharaha giyahama.”

The Sihala Urumaya which became the JHU behaved the same way a few months ago when they beat the hell out of some intellectuals and artists when they were holding a seminar or something to strengthen ethnic harmony or something. Then the Sihala Urumaya said that those people were supporters of LTTE and they deserved the beating. Now the JHU (who did not condemn that incident and thus endorse it) seem to have got the taste of their own medicine.

Anyway, the performance of the Muppet show is not a good sign. How do we expect the younger generation to behave responsibly when the members of parliament is behaving like hooligans? These kind of behaviors give an open ticket to the thugs in the universities to continue their unruly behavior. Even though the JVP has entered the democratic process, they still seem to act as they are still in the jungle. I think there is a saying “Even if you take the tiger out of the jungle, you can not take the jungle out of the tiger.” This is true with the JVP.